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The day grew on as the battle died down. Karlie decided to stay with us since she was a long way from home. Karlie stayed in one of the guest rooms. One of 45. But thats besides the point. She got the suite. The best one. Karlie wore a pair of my pajama's to bed, but they were a little small for her, so she had to wear a pair of Trunk's sweats instead. I sat at the head of my bed reading the book, 'Roots'. Karlie turned around the corner. "Um, Serena?" She whispered. "Yes?" I put the book down. "Could I borrow a tooth brush?" "Yeah, there's spares in my bathroom." Karlie smiled. "Thanks. And, Serena?" "Yeah?" "Could I ask you a personal question?" "Sure." I motioned for her to get into the room and close the door. Karlie sat at the foot of the bed. "Well, how long have you been with Trunks?" I bit my bottom lip. "Lets see... I was 17 when I met him... I'm 22 now... So about 5 years. Give or take a few months." Karlie lowered her head. "It's nice to know someone will always love you, isn't it?" Her eyes began to turn red and puffy. "Well, yes. It is nice. But why did you want to know that?" Karlie kept her head down and began to speak. "I've never been in love before... I'm just... alone."

Karlie spilled out her life as I sat there, taking at all in. It was overwhelming to hear about her troubles, mainly because there was so many. "I can still kind of remember the day I was left by my real parents." I edged in and rested my head on my hand, putting my elbow on my now indian style legs. "I was just barely 1 month old when my adopted parents found me. I can remember rain pouring down while I was looking through a window. It was a small window and then this hatch thing opened up and rain began to pour in. These shaddows hovered over the opening, and grabbed me. Thats when I blacked out and can't remember anything after that." I slowly 'hmm'ed and leaned back. "Maybe it was just a dream? You know, where you have visions of fake memorys?" Karlie shook her head. "No. It was real. It's too vivid to be a dream." I leaned forward and gave Karlie a hug. "Well, either way, you still need to sleep. We'll go do something fun tomorrow." I said with a smile. "Something fun? Like what?" Karlie said pushing back. "I don't know. Shopping? Go down to the Capsule Corp camp grounds?" "Camping, huh?" Karlie said contemplating the possibilitys. "Yeah. That sounds like fun." Karlie stood and walked to the door way. "Thanks, Serena." I smiled. "No prob."

I woke up around 7 to the sound of fax machines going off in the room next to me and clanking pots and pans on the floor below me. I shifted around and put a pillow over my head. "Granny Briefs is back..." "Serena! Rise and shine! Time to start the day off right with some eggs, waffles, pancakes, toast, hashbrowns, baccon, muffins, omelettes and juice!" Mrs.Briefs said with a spatula in hand. "...In an hour..." I grumbled and turned over. "No no no! It's ready now! You got to get up before it gets cold! Or worse! Goku might come over again like last time!" I sighed. "In that case we might not eat for weeks..." I moaned and sat up. "Fiiiiiiineeee..." "Good! I'll set you a place at the table! I woke your little friend up too!" I nodded. "Oh, and Trunks is at a meeting. He wanted me to tell you that he wont be back until ten or so." "Ok. I'll be down in a minute."

I walked down the stairs in my pajamas, I could have cared less about who saw me. As I stepped into the kitchen, the aroma of millions of flavors swam around me. Karlie was seated at the table, engorging herself heavly. Karlie peeked up from a spoonful of eggs. "Morning!" She cheerfully said, then stuffing another spoonful into her mouth. "M..or..ni..ng..." I spat out. It was amazing. She reminded me of Goku. Or better yet, myself when Trunks and I were training. (Ugh. X_x) Mrs.Briefs swooped around from the stove and tossed some eggs and hashbrowns on my plate. "Your friend is probably my new best friend! She enjoys my cooking more than anyone I know!" I thought to myself. 'I wonder if Karlie had her taste buds burnt off...' "She has the biggest appetite I've seen since Goku and Goten! Not to mention she's a girl!" Mrs.Briefs was so proud that she stood and smiled to herself for a few minutes, nearly dropping yokes on the floor from an over flowing pan. Karlie licked the edge of her plate and set it on the table. "More omelette please!" I stood there stunned. "This is not normal human activity... is it?" I said to myself. "Your friend Karlie here tells me that she has no place to stay! I'd be more than happy to let her stay here as long as she keeps up this healthy appetite!" Karlie hit her chest, forcing some baccon down her trechea.

"Yeah, since my parents are now both dead, the family riches go to me. But until the attorneys figure out all of it, I have no place to stay." Karlie said wipping her face with a napkin. I stuffed a spoonfull of omelette into my mouth, not making eye contact with my plate. I held my breath as I took another bite of the over cooked eggs. "Serena, why was the house such a mess yesterday?" Granny Briefs asked spooning some sugar into her coffee. I paused and my eyes opened wide. Karlie did the same. "Er... A raccoon got into the house... Had to chase it out..." Granny Briefs stopped and thought for a second and smiled. "Well those pesky raccoons always get into the house! One of them was in the shower 7 years ago!" I burried my face into my hand and thought to myself, 'Wonder what it really was that time...'. Just then, Bulma ran into the living room screaming. "GET OUT OF MY HOUSE! I WONT TELL YOU WHERE SHE IS!" I glanced over at the door way. A male voice yelled from the living room while knocking over things in his path. "TELL ME WHERE SHE IS! DON'T MAKE ME GET VIOLENT!" Bulma yelled out to me while screaming, "SERENA! GET OUT OF THE HOUSE!!" I stood up and ran into the living room. I gasped as I saw a man holding Bulma up to the wall strangling her. "HEY!" I yelled as I pulled on the mans shoulder, forcing him away from Bulma. He looked at me and grined. "Why hello, my love." I gasped again when I realized who he was.

"D-darien!" Darien casually walked over to me, getting closer to me and placing a hand on my cheek. "Why my love, you have matured. You look twice as beutiful as before your Kami forsaken boy friend killed me." He growled then looked around the house. "Speaking of that little tweaker, where is he?" "Thats none of your business. I suggest you leave before I have to remove you from the facilitys." I said pulling his hand off of my face. Darien started laughing and put his hand on my hip. "My love, you expect me to leave? We were ment for each other! Admit it! You want a real man like me!" I swatted his hand off of me. "No Darien. I don't think you realize that your still caught up int he false allusion that I like you. Hmm. Ironic, isn't it?" "What's ironic?" I grined. "That you don't listen to a word I say. I hate you, Darien Shields. I hate you more than I did when I was a 17 year old girl. I hated that you tried to take advantage of my voulnerablilty. You just couldn't take that someone didn't like the Prince of Earth, could you? You thought that because you're royal schmutt that you can have who ever you want. Is that it, Darien? Is that why you can't take the fact that I don't love you, let alone like you? Or is it because someone else got me? I want to know why." I crossed my arms and raised an eye brow. "Tell me." I said under my breath.

Darien took a step back and bit his lip. "You want to know why I love you?" He asked. "No. I want to know why you wont leave me alone. But knowing why you 'love me' would explain somethings." Darien took a breath as he began. "When I first met you, I was 23. I never met a girl that I really liked until your mother and my father became an alliance. When I first saw you, you were 15. I knew you were too young for me then, so I was waiting until your 18th birthday to propose marriage to you. I was devistated when you rejected me for that boy. He had no qualifications to be with a woman of such importance. You wouldn't understand then why I needed you so badly as my own, but now I believe you can. I wanted you to be my bride because there was no other royalty that would accociate with me. I was to them, a low class little boy." "Which you were." I interupted. "I may has well have been. But I still didn't want to lose my nly chance with a girl. You would have gotten such better treatment than this. From riches to penny bags, I always thought. You could have had the world. Literially. But you take this boy. This little un-royal boy. Half human, half Saiya-Jin. It's a sad situation, but I bet your here for sympathy." I growled and pointed at him. "You want to know why I'm here?" Darien nodded silently. "Fine."

"It was the day that Julie came to the moon. I was having problems in the castle, what with you and my mother ragging on me to marry. I was stressed, really. I was tired off all the troubles at home. I wanted to be normal. That was the day that I met Trunks. He was the nicest guy I had ever met. He was exactly what I had dreamed that my real prince would be like." I smiled to myself and noted Darien's hatefull glare. "When I realized that Trunks was who I wanted to spend the rest of my life with, I knew that I had to choose between Royalty or Humanity. You left me with no choice, Darien. I was never in love with you. You wouldn't stop with the harassment and the mental abuse. You weren't at all like I wanted my prince to be. You were like the spawn of all bad things. You never knew about Trunks and I until he came to the moon, did you? You felt threatened. Someone had your prey and you weren't about to lose the chase. Well, I was tired of you, to say the least. The very least. You couldn't take the hint that no one wanted you. Darien, understand that you just can't love someone if they're royal or not. Trunks has royal blood like us. He chose to be the way he is." I paused and looked down. "And so have I.